of middle school movies and trembling birds
by not a straight trumpet
Summary: Nozomi and Mizore see a film together.


**a/n: **thank you to my good friend serena for suggesting nozomizo's first kiss! with finale oath's usa release so soon i feel like we need to appreciate the most canon pair

* * *

Mizore lived a fairytale.

Not one with a happy ending, no, she was not optimistic enough for that, but perhaps one of those strange old ones, without any of the Disney gloss at the end but still chock full of fanciful musings on love, _love, _that beautiful and all-consuming thing.

Currently, she was all-consumed with Nozomi Kasaki. Yuuko - funny girl that she was, always flitting around somewhere in her peripheral - had noticed, too.

Or she seemed to have noticed, anyway, in her own weird and protective way.

"You know," she says, chomping on a stick of . . . something, jerky, maybe? Something she can chomp on, anyhow. "Kasaki-san hangs out with that _no-good _Nakagawa-san." Her ribbon bounces animatedly as she talks. Mizore idly picks at her food. "She's such a _nuisance,_ that girl."

"Nozomi?"

"What? No, Nakagawa. Kasaki-san's just an accomplice."

"To what?"

"To whatever she's planning!" Yuuko throws her arms up in the air, exasperated, in that dramatic way only middle schoolers can pull off. "She came into school last week with the tips of her hair dyed purple. Can you believe that?"

"Is there a rule against that?" Mizore asks, tugging at her own hair, thinking about Nozomi again. She's got the prettiest eyes, the nicest laugh. Even if Nakagawa really is a no-good delinquent and not just a lazy girl Yuuko is fixated on, Mizore trusts Nozomi's judgement.

"No, but it's the principal of the thing!" Yuuko throws her arms up again and then bangs them onto the table, sending it wobbling. Mizore moves to secure her lunch. She'd just finished washing the stains from her uniform, she'd hate to do that again. "Ugh. She's just so . . . so . . ."

"So what?"

"So _Natsuki!"_ Yuuko drops her entire upper body onto the table, now, groaning. "But if you like Kasaki-san, tell her! There's a festival coming up, I hear it gets super romantic up there sometimes. _Obviously _I'm not . . . going, but . . ." Yuuko trails off, looking at Mizore for a beat too long, and then slumps back onto the table. "You could."

"I don't really like festivals." They were awfully loud, usually, and everything smelled.

"Then go to a movie with her or something. Just be careful, alright?" Yuuko reached out her hand, placing it on Mizore's, so tenderly that it almost felt like it wasn't there. "You're too good for anyone."

* * *

Mizore asks Nozomi, who promptly decides on going to the movies.

"There's this American one I've been _dying _to see," she says, clasping her hands together like an old-fashioned dame. Mizore is spellbound. "It's about this girl from the future - I mean, the whole thing's set in the future, she's not _from _the future exactly - and she's an archer, you know, with the bow and arrow? And the government is messed up, so they make kids kill each other for their own entertainment, so this girl - the archer - she volunteers so her little sister doesn't have to fight! Anyway, it just came to theaters here, if you want." Nozomi takes a long breath, calms her waving hands. "If that's something you'd be into."

"That sounds nice." Mizore threads her fingers through Nozomi's, an easy action that makes her dizzy, and she wonders if this is how modern fairy tales should go, with movies about girls with bows and arrows and a fittingly sharp warmth plunging into her heart.

* * *

They arrive to the movie on time, Mizore much earlier, Nozomi just a few minutes before it starts. They find a pair of seats towards the middle, where they can see it without being too close to the screen.

It's . . . a fine movie, Mizore supposes, not particularly her kind of thing, but Nozomi enjoys it. The girl is interesting, though she doesn't care for her love interests, whose names she forgets as soon as they show up.

What she _doesn't _forget is Nozomi's presence next to her, burning a hole in her side, hands intertwined on the sticky armrest. Oh, how could she try to even say she paid attention to the movie when this girl was next to her?

Love was so strong, she thinks as a swarm of bees overtook a competitor until they were nothing. Nozomi instinctively covers her eyes, whisper-shrieking _"ew!" _Her weird little giggle tells Mizore that she isn't too scared, really. Love was strong enough that her heart hurt.

"It's nice, isn't it?" Nozomi leans back in her seat partway through as the girl onscreen tends to her love interest's wounds. Mizore wonders if Nozomi cares for the romance more than she does. Probably. Still, her heart stirs. "Being able to rely on someone like that?"

"Yeah."

The theatre is dark, too dark, for Mizore to make out Nozomi's face so . . . so _clearly. _Especially because that meant she wasn't looking at the movie anymore.

_Especially_ because that meant she was getting closer.

Mizore isn't stupid. She knows what this was. She knows, but that doesn't make it seem more real. She inches closer, too, trembling like a mouse, or a rabbit, or maybe a bird. A bird? Did birds tremble? She decides they do.

Birds can't feel all of this, though, can't feel the world slipping away into inky Technicolor darkness as Mizore cups her hand behind Nozomi's head like people do in the movies - like the girl is probably doing to her friend in the cave - and Nozomi closes the final distance and kisses her, and it's . . .

_It's . . ._

_Mizore . . . ._

Mizore feels the sudden reentry of air into her lungs before she realizes Nozomi has pulled back. She tastes her lip gloss, still, and her lips feel warm. Electric. Nozomi makes a little noise, satisfied, and turns back to the movie. Mizore's heart implodes.

* * *

They do not talk about the kiss. Not after the movie finishes rolling its last credit, not after they leave the theatre, not for weeks and weeks until the weeks stretch into months and months stretch into years and the only reason Mizore knows the kiss happened at all is because she still has the receipt from the movie, all the wording rubbed away except for a bit of the title.

Yuuko asks her, once, why she keeps a ratty scrap of paper with only the words _er G _on it, but she snatches it back so quickly that Yuuko looks afraid to question her further.

Yuuko is afraid of a lot of things, Mizore thinks.

* * *

So it's years later, then, and it's their third year and Mizore has stopped tiptoeing around her feelings so she's dating Nozomi, kind of, and she kisses her whenever she can like the world will end soon - and it might as well, with college so close on the horizon - but if the world ends, she thinks, at least they'll be able to patch each other up.

Fairy tales are funny that way.

* * *

**a/n: **took a fun trip down memory lane looking up movies that came out in 2012 (aka nozomizo's second year) and this was the Result. middle school yuuko is a menace and i loved writing her.


End file.
